A DAD-OF-TWO spent the better part of a year growing out his beard to raise funds for a hospice charity.

Stephen Robinson, of Bicester, became so unrecognisable that he struggled to make it back into the country after a holiday because he looked nothing like his passport picture.

The 60-year-old, who shaved off his impressive facial hair on Christmas Day, used the challenge to raise £300 for Oxford-based Sobell House Hospice.

Mr Robinson, who works for Lloyd Woodworking Ltd in Brackley, said the fundraising mission started out of the blue.

He said: “It was just a bit of a prank really. I was at work in March and I had a couple of days’ growth and a friend of mine said: ‘Why don’t you grow it?’

“I thought it would be nice if people would give me £10 or £20 for doing it to go to charity and it just went on and on from there really.

“I did have a beard once before but that was back in 1979.”

Initially, Mr Robinson was hesitant about growing a long beard, especially when his wife, Lesley, warned him he would look scruffy.

It turned out scruffiness would be the least of his troubles, as he discovered following a holiday to Costa Rica in November.

He said: “I had trouble getting back into the country because I looked nothing like my passport picture.

“I tried to scan it three times and it wouldn’t go through. I ended up getting taken away and searched. My wife looked a bit worried. I said: ‘Look, I’m growing this for charity.’

“Eventually they did let me in. When I went back to work and told people what happened they all just started laughing.”

Mr Robinson selected Sobell House because he remembered attending Churchill Hospital, in Headington, for check-ups and seeing people going in and out of the hospice.

He said: “I always thought it must be a nice and peaceful place. They do marvellous things for people and I just thought maybe I could do something for them.”

It was Christmas Eve when the challenge finally came to an end as Mrs Robinson took a pair of clippers to her husband’s overgrown beard. Mr Robinson finished the job himself with a wet shave the following day.

Despite his success in filling the pot for a good cause, Mr Stevenson will likely look at alternative ways of raising funds for charity in future.

He said: “A guy at work said if I let it go on for another year he’d give me £50. I told my colleagues they’d have my wife to contend with.

“It was a one off and I do feel all nice and clean after shaving it off. Lesley said she now has her husband back.”